The Tale of Daniella
by Laraqua
Summary: A family breaks down outside the mansion, is discovered by Debilitas and 'rescued' by Daniella who wishes to include them in the new experiments in the hope of once more isolating Azoth. However, all does not go to plan.
1. Chapter 1

Daniella strode through the hallway and down the wide stairwell to the dining room. She paused at the door, hearing the gentle laughter and soft voices coming from within. Intellectually, she knew they disgusted her and that she was having a moment of self-pity, though she felt nothing. The disgust did not claw at her, like it did in certain novels she had read, and the self-pity roused no sensation within her solid clay body.

She filled her constructed lungs in preparation to speak, and pulled open the door. "It is time I served dinner," she said as she walked past, not waiting for a response.

"I'd say so," said the male guest, a man called Roger. An overweight and sweating Englishman who was the father in the family. He let loose a loud guffaw. "I'm famished. Could eat just about anything right about now."

She paused. "Dinner will be served soon." Then she continued on out the door into the kitchen. She had only left the pots simmering on their own for a little while so she could check the experimental cages were prepared. It wasn't as though she could believe the others would do so properly.

The door opened quietly behind her as she stirred an Irish Stockpot. She ignored the footsteps that approached her and the masculine cough for attention.

"So, uh, your name is Daniella, right?" asked Harry, the eldest son who was apparently nineteen. "You're real pretty for a maid."

Daniella simply stirred.

"Wow. Guess that sounded really rude, huh? Sorry." The sound of shuffling feet. Another cough or two. "Daniella's a real pretty name. It suits you. So, um, how old are you?"

Daniella pondered the question. "Six years..."

"You're sixteen?"

"Sixty years..."

He laughed nervously. She turned her head to glance at the young man, his face red from the many pustules that covered it. Acne. How unseemly. "I'm seventeen myself," he said.

"Dinner will be served soon," she said, turning back to the food. It was taking its time. It would probably be another ten or fifteen minutes before it was prepared.

"Will you be eating with us?"

"I do not taste."

"Aww, come on. It'll be awesome." He moved in close enough for her to see his face and he winked at her. "Almost like a date, y'know? It's not like you'd get guests very often all the way out there." He tilted his head to one side. "Thanks for finding us when our car broke down. That guy that chased us... Man he was big and creepy. I didn't know what he'd do next!"

"Debilitas."

"Bless you," Harry said. "You put too much pepper in it? Anyway, thank God we got away from that guy. If he hadn't tripped and if you hadn't shown up when you did..."

"You're talking about Debilitas."

"You know him? He doesn't live around here, does he?"

"He won't be dining with us."

"Oh?" Harry frowned and stepped away. "Okay..." He turned to go, probably to tell his parents that the filthy man was nearby. He would give them all away and she couldn't have that. So she spun on her heel with a clear frying pan in hand and brought it down across the back of his head as hard as she could.

He grunted, took a few more steps forward, swayed, nearly fell backwards, regained his balance, lungs working hard as though to build up a scream. She walked after him, hit him again, the momentum sending him staggering into the kitchen wall, but he stayed upright spun around, and she hit him in the face. His nose shattered with a crack, his head snapped back and hit the wall with a thwack, and he slumped to the floor.

Daniella dragged him out into the little corridor outside the kitchen and went to fetch Debilitas from the hut. She found him on his bed, laying under a blanket, a dirty magazine semi-hidden in his armpit. Judging by his red face, he had not been attempting to sleep. She wished she cared about his filthy mannerisms, his grotesquely human desires, but she didn't. She could only file away somewhere in her memories that she would sorely like this man to die.

"There's a boy outside the kitchen that needs to be taken to the cells."

Debilitas nodded but didn't move.

"Now." Daniella turned and left. She didn't want to see such a hairy, sweaty and large body in all his malformed, masculine glory. She snorted at the thought of masculine glory. So many imperfections in the world. "I was made perfect," she muttered as she walked back towards the kitchen. She paused as she shut the door behind her. "I deserve ... Azoth."

She stepped over the unconscious and bleeding boy and went into the kitchen. The stockpot was bubbling now so she went over and switched it off then began to fill some bowls with the warm mixture. She added some sleeping drugs, not too much, for there were to be more than this one meal set on the table and she didn't want them to die from an overdose. Then she carved up a roast, filled a plate with roast vegetables, set out some salads, placed the food onto a large silver tray and walked with practiced grace to the door, opened it and came to the family where she started placing the dishes.

The little girl was tapping her fingers and swinging her legs, looking supremely bored, but she brightened up considerably when she saw the food. She seemed so full of life it seemed obvious that she was infused with Azoth. Perhaps more of the product could be infused from the little wretch.

The humans greedily started filling their plates and bowls. Daniella wished she could also enjoy the many flavours that she made with stilted perfection. To be a chef with no sense of flavour was a tricky job but one that the years had allowed her to hone.

"Where is Harry?" asked the wife, Gerry.

"He offered to help with some chores," Daniella said.

"That don't sound like him."

"Now, now," smirked Roger. "If Harry wants to help Daniella do some chores, I don't see why she would stir him up about it."

Daniella turned and left to see if Debilitas had done as he was commanded. She found the giant of a man standing in the corridor. Harry was nowhere in sight. "Have you removed the boy?" Daniella asked.

Debilitas frowned and scuffed the floor with a large foot. "Ain't here," he said, breathing so hard he seemed about to hyperventilate.

"Stupid oath," she said, the words flung casually, yet causing him to cower, trembling. She turned smartly away, then paused. "Where is the dog?"

"Ur...?"

"Their pet dog they left in the yard. It might cause a mess. Did you chain it up?" Daniella, hearing no response, whirled around. "Do it now."

Debilitas hunched his shoulders up around his head and shuffled off.

Daniella frowned. "Cleaning time now."


	2. Chapter 2

Daniella dipped the cloth in the tin of varnish and carefully wiped it onto the heads of the nails that held the dolls against the wall. She had a step ladder with her to ensure that she could reach all of the dolls. She couldn't remember why the warnings had been nailed to the walls. Perhaps to remind Debilitas of the fate that came from running across the mat? He was fool enough to forget easily enough and although she hardly cared for his life, it would be a difficult task to clean up the mess had the warnings not been put into place.

Footsteps padded up to her and a sharp knife was placed against her throat. She could feel her neck tear against its serated edge but it was a faraway concern, much like ripping her dress would have been. A rough hand gripped her wrist, warm, foul, earthy breath blasted across her face.

Men. They smelled like pigs even when they were hardly adult.

"Where are they?" demanded Harry.

She paused, her hand reaching halfway up to one of the dolls. "I have a job to do, sir."

"And what job is that?"

"I must varnish the nails, sir." She reached up to wipe more varnish on a nail, carefully setting it into all of the grooves.

"I want my family."

She ignored him.

He uttered a short, primal snarl. "What is this room?"

Daniella turned her head a little towards him, pleased at how he hesitated, moving the knife a little away from her throat in fear of hurting her. And oh, how he looked afraid, with sweat leaking from his pores, his eyes red-rimmed and the space between nose and mouth covered in dried snot. "This is the doll room, sir."

"What are you going to do with my family?"

The thought of his family in the cells almost made her glad. She smiled a little, conjuring up the false sensation of joy to meet her intellectual desire. "Extraction ... Azoth ... perhaps?"

"My family don't know anything." His voice was shrill. "Look, you're going to help me release my parents. Now. This way." He walked her around the interior wall to where the trapped rug lay.

She could see the masks on the wall and knew the nails they would shoot and she wondered how many nails it would take to force her master to rebuild her. It was a shame that Harry would have to die for he might have held life in sufficient quantity to have life extracted from him, much as the Other One had.

The moment before her foot would touch the rug, she pulled her consciousness from all her limps and went slack in Harry's grip, sliding down, the knife grazing her throat and cheek, her arm twisting in Harry's grasp. She hit the rug face-first just as Harry stepped forward to stand beside her.

The nails shot forward, tearing through him with wet schlicking sounds. He slumped onto her, his hairy body leaking blood along with sweat, landing on her and soaking her dress with his still-warm fluids. Daniella pulled herself free and went over to switch off the trap. Then she went to fetch Debilitas to clean up the body, perhaps putting it in one of the many miniature furnaces or chopping it up to replenish their dwindling meat supplies.

Oh well. Daniella would soon have to venture into town and obtain more supplies. Perhaps she would be forced to go further afield and find some likely specimens, as well. It would be unpleasant to be forced to be with those who held within them what she lacked, whose very minds and souls were so weak, so stewed in their own filthy, they couldn't respect, much less understand, their very gift.

Much as Debilitas' early pawings back before he realised her resolute determination and incapacity to feel pain meant she would always win, always, proved that he was too filthy to deserve life, so did all of the cowed or abusive humans, simpering and whining and indulging themselves in the feebler emotions, show that they were unworthy. She would win out over them as well.

She made her way to the cells, passing the other moving dolls, chanting and beating their heads against the wall. They lacked a large enough fragment of Azoth to spread within the clay of their bodies, animating it with will alongside motion. Their portion was too small to be recaptured, dispersing the moment they were destroyed, as she had once discovered.

She picked up a pole that lay rested against the wall and turned to one of the clay monstrosities that had so hideously wasted a fragment that could have given her greater life, and beat it until it trembled, its limbs twitching in ways that suggested structural damage, one arm hanging from its body by a thread.

Then she turned back toward the cells and peered in at the still sleeping humans. It was unlikely that these specimens contained enough life to extract in a sufficient amount for her own higher awakening or for the immortality of the already awakened. They were unhealthy, impure, suitable for only making clay move.

And yet, the little girl seemed healthy enough as she slept. She seemed to almost glow. Daniella reached in between the bars and stroked her hair.

Soon, at least, Daniella would know for sure.


	3. Chapter 3

Daniella heard a low growl and she turned to regard the dog the paced the length of the cage next to the one that housed the family. She gazed at the white ball of fluff and sinew, shut her eyes and imagined him splayed out, his skin unfolding like the petals of a flower, leaving a blob of quivering flesh. When she opened her eyes, the dog was frozen in place, growling.

"Can you ... tell?" she asked, moving to grasp the bars of the cage.

The dog just growled.

"Am I not what I seem?" She paused, casting her gaze this way and that, checking for the humans that inhabited this house. "I am created. Might that be a lie? Might I be a damaged ... woman." She turned back to the cage that housed the humans. She felt alone in her unfeeling body. There was nothing left to clean.

She unlocked the door to the family cage and took hold of the little girl's leg. Then she turned and dragged the child after her. The child awoke just as she was being dragged up a set of stairs towards the doll room. She dug her nails into the steps, squirming weakly, the drug still coursing through her veins and rendering her muscles weak.

Finally they were in the doll room and Daniella released the girl and locked the door. For a moment, the girl just lay there. Then she slowly rose up to her feet, swaying wildly. The girl turned for the other door, took a few stumbling steps, went down on one knee, managed to get upright again. Tears flowed down her Azoth-infused features.

No, not Azoth. Humans possessed the spark of Azoth, not Azoth itself. The inanimate could not be given true life from the life of the humans for much of the essence of life was consumed at the moment of conception. But yes, there were remnants here, and as Daniella watched the remnants regard her fearfully, she felt herself hunger for sensation.

"Why do you cry?" Daniella asked.

"Where's daddy? Where's mummy? Where's Harry?"

"They aren't here."

The little girl massaged her arms, legs, face. "Why'd you drag me here?"

"I want to play a game."

"What kinda game?"

"I want to watch you."

The little girl sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve, leaving a trail of snot behind.

"But whatever shall we play?" Daniella turned around in slow circles, her gaze falling across everything in the room again and again. It took her several long minutes to realise that the little girl wasn't standing beside her any longer. "It is time to play chasey."

She got down on hands and knees to peer under the sofa. No one there. Then looked over at the cage to see if she was inside. Not there. She checked her pocket for a key. She had none. She went to the door. Locked. She went to the other door. Also locked.

Then she heard something scamper behind her, heard something jiggle in the door lock behind her, then heard someone small pant as they pulled open the door and fled. Daniella allowed all this, her hand still grasping the door knob, her head bowed a little. She had never had a childhood. She supposed it would be good to learn what children learned. If she did that, then perhaps she would be given Azoth.

She smiled a little and turned to face where the little girl had left. "Ready or not, here I come."


End file.
